Thoughts, Persistence, and Habits

Most "positive thinking" practitioners would know that our thoughts lead to things. A thought held on with persistence soon becomes our belief. Our belief then controls our life. That last part is a good as well as a not-so-good thing. Why? Because if we picked up the wrong thought from our environment, then our continued focus on it would have turned it into a belief we could have done without. But then again, the good part is that we can undo the unwanted thoughts and beliefs.

Staying on with the topic of persistence, a persistent thought does not just become a belief but also a habit. What's the difference? Well, one of them has to do with the mind (belief) and the other with the body (habit). Let's take the example of smoking. So, if we smoke knowing that it is terrible for our health, then blame it on our habit. That doesn't absolve us from doing something terrible against ourselves, but at least we are putting the blame in the right place. Also, notice that we could have a belief or no belief supporting this habit. That is to say, we may have no belief causing us to smoke other than our need to smoke (habit or addiction). We may have started with the belief that it is "cool" to smoke, but once in it, it had become a habit.

Why are we discussing this? Because to do away with our past and non-useful beliefs and habits, we have to deal with both body and mind, not just mind or not just body. Let's elaborate on that part a bit more.

Beliefs and Habits | Deal with Both | Or Stay Stuck with One

Our mistake of not dealing with both mind and body leads us to keep on embarking on positivity attempts and falling right back to where we were. Failure is a given in such cases.

Beliefs are to do with what the brain has been conditioned to think, while habits are to do with what the body has been conditioned to experience. Now, the latter further means that habit is a reflex or muscle memory that acts as its own mind in making decisions. So, we wanting to smoke is our body functioning like our mind and leading us to do what we do. We have to deal with both body and mind for ultimate success in such cases.

It is not difficult to see the point here. If we are smoking and we do all the things that we should do to rid our minds of the smoking problem, we will eventually be successful in believing that we should not smoke. But that's not enough. The next moment, our body prods us to light up a cigarette because it expects it from experience, we will follow the body. This leads to a situation where the mind says - we should not smoke because it is terrible, but our body says otherwise. The result – we smoke but with heavy guilt of doing something we shouldn't. Guilt is the result of our body being at odds with our mind. So, now we not only smoke but also immerse ourselves in heavy guilt. What do we think that does to our health?

This should be a good indicator for us to check if those pesky negative thoughts that don't go away with our EFT, Meditation, NLP, and other mind-focused programs have anything to do with the body. Dealing with the body, too, will eventually erase the habit that we want to be demolished.

Dealing With the Body and Stored Up Experiences

Stored-up experiences in our bodies create our habits. We tend to expect more of the same in a given circumstance. Even if our mind wants to believe otherwise, our body pulls us towards the same known undesirable outcome.

We tend to believe that habits are to do with the mind and therefore deal with it only at the brain level. But there is enough and more research that shows that habits are ingrained in our bodies. After all, the term "muscle memory" has meaning because of experiences (or habits) that train our body to act in a particular way.

I first realized this when listening to one of Dr. Joe Dispenza's works. He shows how some thoughts and ideas are ingrained so deep that clearing them out from both mind and body is what would lead to success.

Here is one of his videos on the subject. Take notes. 😊